Today KAMAZ-master crews took the course for Moscow, where the international Silk Way Rally is going to start on Red Square on 8 July.
The “Blue Armada” will get there on 7 July in order to go through administrative checks before the race, which will cross Russia-Kazakhstan-China.
By the way, the sixth edition of the SWR will beat a distance record of the previous years. Now the participants will have to cross 10 000 km.
KAMAZ-master will fight for the main prize – a white tiger. Five crews will take part: the crews of Eduard Nikolaev, Airat Mardeev, Anton Shibalov, Andrey Karginov, Dmitry Sotnikov. Apart from that, a Chinese pilot Hou Hongning will sit at the wheel of KAMAZ race truck, which was tested on many races. This brand also won the Silk Way four times.
Eduard Nikolaev will have to test a new bonnet truck in such difficult conditions. If the team will be satisfied with it, the truck will go to Dakar.
In previous editions of SWR the fortune favoured the team. The first race in 2009 with the route Russia-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan was won by Firdaus Kabirov – two-time winner of Dakar.
In 2010, when the rally started in St-Petersburg and finished in Sochi, the team took all the positions on podium. Then the crew of Eduard Nikolaev, who just started his sport career, took the first place. Crews of Vladimir Chagin and Firdaus Kabirov came straight after him.
In 2011 crews of Firdaus Kabirov and Andrey Karginov took 2 and 3 positions. Then the marathon connected two Olympic capitals: Moscow and Sochi.
In 2012 the challenging race Moscow-Gelendzhik was won by Airat Mardeev ( in three years he will become a champion of Dakar), the third place belonged to Anton Shibalov.
The fifth edition of the rally (Moscow-Astrakhan) was lucky for Dmitry Sotnikov and Anton Shibalov.
Contestants of the Silk Way Rally-2016 – KAMAZ-master crews:
Crew 310
Eduard Nikolaev, pilot
Evgeny Yakovlev, navigator
Vladimir Rybakov, mechanic
Crew 306
Airat Mardeev, pilot
Aidar Belyaev, navigator
Dmitry Sotnikov, mechanic
Crew 303
Anton Shibalov, pilot
Robert Amatych, navigator,
Almaz Khisamiev, mechanic
Crew 314
Andrey Karginov, pilot
Aleksander Kuprianov, navigator,
Igor Leonov, mechanic
Crew 300
Dmitry Sotnikov, pilot
Ruslan Akhmadeev, navigator,
Ivan Romanov, mechanic
